


Commander Wren

by EyeLoch



Series: Imperial Sabine and Ezra AU [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Bureaucracy, F/M, Insomnia, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, mental manipulation references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9368609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EyeLoch/pseuds/EyeLoch
Summary: An imperial flight commander thinks about her life - and the Sith who keeps bothering her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, continuing my take on meldy-arts‘ imperial AU, here is a continuation of my prior work - this time focusing on Sabine:

Once, she’d thought individuals were important – that if everyone was free to express themselves, somehow things would all just _work out_.  She knew better, these days.  Sure, she’d enjoyed expressing herself with colour and danger when she was younger, but she’d put away childish things when she learned the truth - people rarely did what they should, trust tended to get you hurt.  

If it took overwhelming force to get people to do the right thing, wasn’t that still the right thing to do?

The Rebel propaganda artists secretly loved her, she was pretty sure, called her “Mandalore’s Butcher” or “Death Watch’s successor” (as if she was like her mother – a fool who followed anyone who scared her).  But she wasn’t monstrous, wasn’t insane – her strikes were always carefully crafted, always designed for the best results.  

If some civilians had to be sacrificed, well surely they should blame the Rebels for using them as shields – not her necessary response.

She supposed she should be flattered that she was making such an impact.  After all - while somewhat popular with some of those higher up in the Empire – she was merely a Flight Commander, barely promoted from her period of captaincy.   It was in that spirit she had a few of the rebel posters featuring her up in her new office – well, either that or the confusion it caused in some of her underlings (she was, after all, still young enough to enjoy a simple pleasure or two).

She had a few imperial propaganda posters up as well, of course.  After all, she wasn’t as secure in her position as the Grand Admiral – _she_ couldn’t fill her room with rebel artwork without a visit or two from the local Ideological Monitor.

* * *

Sometime far into the night cycle of her Star Destroyer, she was still awake.  16 hours just weren’t ever enough to get all her work done, she found, thus sleeping was something to be done rarely and briefly. 

Some considered her an overachiever, she knew.  They thought her obsessed with making everyone as tired as possible through endless new training and drills, never satisfied with anyone’s performance or dedication.  What they didn’t seem to realise was that she had to be better than anyone – had to justify her rank when age was brought up.

The end of her work should have brought an end to those thoughts - once promotions (and demotions) had been filed, training regimes finalised and reports to the Sector Commander sent off – sleep should have been easy, running on (caff) fumes as she was.  

Yet it eluded her.  

Perhaps she _should_ order some medication, even if Captain Praxon might notice and seize on that weakness – spread rumours and ruin the reputation she’d worked herself half to death for.   Would a longer lifespan be worth all that risk, when she was finally in a worthwhile position –

With a start, she realised she’d opened the graphics program on her datapad again.  Looking at her handiwork – the black lines on a white screen – she saw the gaps in a Stormtrooper’s armour, the vulnerabilities that enemies could exploit.  

Perhaps more work might help.

Looking again at her collection of lines, a memory stirred in her tired brain – of a little gambit she tried a year or so ago.  Rebels rarely wore any armour, preferring to look inconspicuous, and thus she escaped a tricky ambush by having the squad she was assigned to detonate shrapnel grenades in close quarters.  It wasn’t a particularly proud moment in her military career.  True, enemy casualties were high, and their ambush was a failure, but the wounds she’d inflicted on her own side…

Shaking away the memories, she opened a new file on her datapad.  If they’d thrown the explosives the right distance -

“So _Flight_ Commander, overstepping your boundaries again?”

The Sith paused in the doorway, attempting to look more intimidating than sarcastic – failing miserably, as it happened, due to not having Vader’s benefit of a mask.  Sabine supposed she should be a bit nervous – after all he could do worse than kill her – but frankly, at this moment, she just wanted him to piss off.

“So, _My Lord_ ,” she said (primly, to the point of blatant sarcasm), “What brings you to my office at _this_ hour?”  

“I merely wished to see how your new position was treating you, Commander.  After all, the Grand Admiral’s little test had kept me away from this sector for some time.  I would _hate_ to think you didn’t know how much I cared.”

“At this hour?  I should hope someone with the power to make or break entire campaigns would have sensible sleeping hours.”

“I could say the same to you, Miss Wren-“

“Commander.  Wren.”

“My apologies, though it was a compliment – your skills are impressive.”

“Well, if you’d actually let me finish this drill routine, I might actually address your concerns.”

“All this drilling, all these tests,” The Sith sighed (theatrically), “If you’d just let me-“

“No.”

“I wouldn’t make so many mistakes this time,“ he said, vaguely affronted.   “After all, after all we’ve been through together, I hope I’d know your mind rather well.”

“You wish,” she smirked, “I still have my secrets!”

Something about that seemed to relax him, a little.  With a flick of the hand towards the other chair, she let him know to sit down.   With something approximating gratefulness, he sank into the hard plastic as if it was a pile of cushions.  With his face so close to hers, the new bags under his eyes could be seen – he’d not been sleeping much either.

“So,” she probed, trying for a sympathetic look, “you’re caught in another power struggle?”

“Well,” he smirked back, “I see you’ve been learning a little from Thrawn as well.”

“Are you trying to say I don’t have any talents of my own?”  The game had fallen into the usual routine, it seemed.  “I’d be careful with words like those – I have access to your quarters, after all…”

“I think you need me,” came the usual riposte, “after all, your checked Academy record rather speaks for itself-“

“As if you aren’t considered a bit of risk yourself-“

Suddenly though, he stopped the game.  The smirk fell away.

“Vader, Tarkin, Pestage, Amedda…”   It took an actual sympathetic hand on his shoulder to get him to continue.  “I think I’m more of a game piece than a player these days – and one side’s going to sacrifice me sooner or later.”

“You have the Inquisition though?”

“Most of them, yeah - I suppose that might keep me safe for a while.  But if I don’t get more people on my side soon, I might end up expendable.”

“Well, you still don’t get to ruin _my_ pilots.  Or my Stormtroopers for that matter.”

The smirk came back – a little sheepish.  He’d certainly tried to make up for the early parts of their acquaintance lately, but turning most of her second-ever squad into mindless automata wasn’t something she’d let go of lightly.

“I’ve got a lot better since then, you know – I could give every person here something a lot like your brain – I could save you all the trouble of training and all that –“

“And have an entire ship of paranoid insomniacs?  I think-”

“Your mind’s perfect,” he suddenly blurted.

Sabine was about to fire back some form of retort, then some instinct got her to look closer.

Was that a slight _blush_?!


End file.
